19. Maxon
Panic is at the edge of Paige’s eyes, and I fight the urge to wrap an arm around her. I have a feeling though, that after that kiss it would not be well received. Instead, I do the astute thing and hum a response. “Interesting.” I tack on just to be able to say I said something in this predicament.
A hysteric laugh escapes her. “That’s all you have to say?” She shoots, and I know it’s just her panic that makes her words sound so irritated.
Or maybe it’s just me.
“Would you rather I say ‘bibbidi-bobbidi-boo’ and make it unlock?” I cut back.
She crosses her arms, her stare taking on that unamused, dead look. “Well, I mean, if you could.”
I let out a sigh that sounds faintly like a growl as she arches an eyebrow at me. “Why don’t you call the admin for this?”
Her glare deflates, a look of hopelessness crossing her features instead and I think I prefer the previous irritation to this. “I only have his office number, and as of-” she glances at the thin watch on her wrist “-two hours ago, the office is closed.”
I run a hand down my face with a moan, catching slightly on the short stubble on my chin before I step up to the doors and try to jar them free myself. After a few attempts with no success, a red light catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. “Was that always on?” I motion to the little blinking light against the wall next to the line of doors on some sort of control panel.
Paige knits her brow at it and nods. “Yeah, I think so.”
I make another humming noise before turning my attention back to the doors. “Well, we’re not getting these open.” I say before turning around and starting back towards where Paige had all the tables set up for her party earlier today.
There’s a moment of silence from her before I hear the clicking of her heels following behind me and I have to fight back a smile as I walk. “That’s it?” She says sharply and I nod.
“There’s not much more we can do. You can’t call the administrator. We can’t get out. So, we’re stuck here until morning.” I step up to one of the tables. “I suggest we finish getting this all packed up.”
“Okay? And then what?” She asks as she comes up alongside me. I’d be lying if I said her proximity didn’t affect me. That I didn’t want to turn and wrap her up in another kiss like we’d done moments ago and relive that moment over and over again. I grab one of the photos, finding something to keep my hands busy instead of twisting them into her perfectly styled hair, or grabbing her by the waist and pulling her close…
No. If Paige wanted to act like it didn’t happen, then it didn’t happen.
I was in this for the long game, and if that meant taking things slow then slow we’d go. From all of our years of knowing each other, I can guarantee my patience will outlast her’s by leaps and bounds.
“Then,” I glance around us, the lights in the garden have dimmed, giving off an almost romantic atmosphere. “Then we sit and stargaze.” I waggle my eyebrows at her.
Her eyes narrow on me as she takes the frame. “We’re in the middle of the city Maxon, we can’t see any stars.”
I lean in slightly, shooting her one of my best smiles. “Then we’ll just have to pretend.”
There’s something heavy that sits behind Paige’s steely eyes as she assesses me, but before I can even try to figure out what it is, she’s turned her back to me and starts packing away the photo.
Silence settles between us as we box up the picture frames, and I’m able to glean a quick assessment of the birthday that Paige had spent the last week stressing about. It’s been an odd week, to say the least, with Paige living in the cabin with me.
Her honey scent has officially immersed into the house, lingering the most in the kitchen and living room where she spends most of her time when she’s there. She’s gone to the store a few times and has filled a shelf in the fridge with her favorite foods, and I’m fairly certain the girl survives solely on overnight oats and Dr. Pepper. She’s also taken to inviting Devon to breakfast every morning, which he’s eagerly obliged to despite the fact that he ends up making more food than he eats. And every night, she sits at the end of the couch with her e-reader, next to the wood burning stove that heats the cabin, leaning as close to it as she can with a blanket thrown across her lap while a cup of tea rests on the end table. And every night, despite claiming that I have work to do at the kitchen island, I can’t help but catch myself watching her. I’ve realized that I could happily spend every night, for the rest of my life, watching her read and wishing I could get a fraction of her attention.
And here again, as I’m standing in the botanical garden, handing her picture frames, I can’t help but watch her as she folds the bubble wrap meticulously. Her brow creased in concentration.
Suddenly I’m thrown back to high school, when I’d end up over at the Bennett’s house studying with Aspen for some test I was already fully prepared for. Paige was usually at their dining room table, textbooks piled around her as she did her own homework, headphones in and completely spaced out from the rest of the world. Whenever Aspen and I would sit down across from her, she would cut us a dry look, her steely eyes affecting me the same way they still do, before focusing back on her school.
She was always far better at ignoring me than I was at ignoring her.
After the first time we hung out while the Bennetts were gone for some kind of vacation, Paige had suggested that we just go back to normal, and I was young and stupid enough to agree. Aspen had a vague idea that Paige and I had seen each other while he was gone, but not to the extent that had actually taken place.
I had always liked Paige, from the moment we met something about her called to me like a homing beacon. Like I didn’t have to act a certain way around her, she didn’t expect anything from me. So that first year when she had texted me out of the blue, asking if I wanted to hang out, I’d agreed rather quickly.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
There was no way for me to have known that in such short increments of time together, I would find myself falling for this girl more and more with each passing season.
We were in high school by the time I was finally brave enough to act on it. Although, the kiss I’d given her at the end of summer break didn’t change anything when the Bennetts returned. Again, she’d slipped right back into barely acknowledging me and I got the message loud and clear.
We could be anything while the Bennetts were gone, but as soon as they returned, we were to slip back into our natural roles.
“Why are you staring at me?” Paige’s voice snaps me back into reality and I blink at her for a moment. Her steel cut eyes are fixed on me, framed by long, dark lashes and a thin line of eyeliner.
I wet my lips. “Sorry,” I say turning back to the picture frames. “Spaced out there for a second.”
She makes a humming noise in acknowledgement, before taking the frame from me and wrapping it.
We’re apparently acting like I hadn’t kissed her less than fifteen minutes ago.
I clear my throat as I grab another frame. “So, how’s your mom doing?”
Her attention snaps to me like I’d brought up her dead dog. “She’s fine.” She says shortly and I let out a sigh. We may be acting like I hadn’t kissed her, but it definitely left an awkwardness between the two of us. Like we were both fourteen again and had no concept of the real world or what real love felt like.
News flash, real love felt like the same love I experienced when I was fourteen. It was just a lot simpler back then.
“C’mon Paige, what’s going on? You said she moved back to take care of your grandma?”
She takes a deep breath, as if filling her lungs with air will help steady herself, placing her palms on the tabletop to help. “Gram was diagnosed with dementia, we suspected that when I left for Europe…”
My heart catches on a beat, as if Paige had hit the literal pause button just to hold emphasis on her words. She was going to see her gram the day that she left.
The day she’d said not to follow her.
The day everything between us had changed.
“You never said…” I begin but stop when she lifts her gaze to meet mine, eyes glazed with held back tears.
“We didn’t know when I left. Just that she was acting weird, she was forgetting things… couldn’t really carry on a conversation through the phone. At first, we just thought that was Gram, she’s always been spacey. But when I got to her place… it was so different.” She shakes her head before straightening and turning to me, a different, more composed and determined glint in her eyes behind the mistiness of unshed tears. “Usually Gram was a hot mess, right? She basically coined the term, but her house was always clean, put together. The tea kettle was always ready. She’d always have fresh bread. And she always had some sort of cookie or cake baking. The woman had an insatiable sweet tooth.”
She shakes her head then, her shoulders dropping. “But when I got there… it was a mess. It didn’t look like the place I’d been in, not even eight months before. I almost questioned if I’d walked into the wrong house.” She bites down on her bottom lip, and I can tell by the look in her steely eyes that’s she’s reliving that moment that she walked into her grandmother’s unrecognizable house. A place she always talked about like it rivaled heaven itself.
“Hey,” I reach out and my fingers graze across the side of her hand, and, as if that small touch jolts her back to present day, her attention snaps to me before jerking back her hands like I’d zapped her. “So, when did your mom go to stay with her?”
She lets out a dry laugh as she takes the next frame from me and begins to wrap it. “As soon as I came back. I didn’t travel like we’d planned, I ended up just staying with Gram and taking care of her, so Ma and I basically decided to trade jobs. Gram was getting steadily worse, she was officially diagnosed, but that didn’t help the mood swings she was going through. It got really bad the day she didn’t recognize me. I almost had to sleep on the front porch, she wouldn’t let me inside, threatening to call the authorities. That was when Ma didn’t feel like she could let me stay with Gram any longer, she wanted me to live my life, not spend my twenties taking care of Gram. Mrs. Bennett offered for me to take Ma’s job just to cover living expenses after I moved back, which just kind of slipped into a long-term gig until I’d saved enough to start Events by Paige.”
I grab another picture; this one was of the same woman but with a little girl at her side, both of them wearing aprons and cooking flour coating both of their faces as they laughed at each other. I hand it to Paige. “So how is your grandma doing now?”
She shrugs, as if she’s indifferent to the answer, like it was just a fact she’s learned to accept. “It depends on the day. Some days she’s doing good and in good spirits. Other days Ma struggles with just getting her to eat.”
“Has your mom thought about putting her into some kind of home that could offer her medical help? Maybe someplace that’s a little better equipped than just her?”
Paige nods. “We’ve talked about it… but Ma won’t leave her even if she’s in a home over there, plus we want them to come back to Buffalo but that takes time. She’s on a waitlist for this place outside of the city and then another a couple hours away that are both nice. But who knows how long it’ll take to get to her.” She wraps the picture of the woman and little girl.
I nod in understanding, although all I could do was try to imagine what she was going through. My mom ducked out on my dad when I was still in diapers, without the few baby pictures I have with her I wouldn’t know what the woman looked like. That was something Paige and I could always relate to each other on that was outside Aspen and Theo’s comprehension. Neither of us really talked about our missing parents, but it was still something that we both knew the other thought about, although, after hearing about her dad, I wonder how much she thought about him now anyways.
Paige heaves a sigh as I hand her another picture, this one of the woman in a swimsuit at what looks like a beach somewhere in the tropics. “What about you? How’s your dad doing? And Fiona?”
A sharp laugh escapes me before I have the right mind to keep it in, I shake my head. “It’s… complicated with them to say the least.” I say shortly, hoping that ends the conversation.
I should have known better.
Paige stares at me with expectant eyes, waiting for me to elaborate on my statement. But what was there to say? My dad was as spaced out as he’s been since I was a kid and my stepmother is as narcissistic and controlling as she’s ever been. I have to give my dad credit though, in the years following my mom leaving he had stepped in and had actually been a pretty decent dad. Granted, I had a lineup of nanny’s taking care of the daily duties, but he at least treated me like a cherished child and not a disgrace to the family name. That had really only changed after Fiona came into the picture. I shrug at her. “You know how it is.” I say and she shakes her head.
“No, I know how it used to be. We haven’t talked in a long time Max.”
Here, in this moment, I had almost forgotten about all of that. Tonight had felt so much like the old times that I could have blissfully ignored the fact that we’ve avoided each other for about seven years now… or was it eight? I’d lost count after she’d moved back to the states and I had to focus more on thinking up excuses as to why I couldn’t go to any of the Bennett family gatherings, Christmas parties, benefits, or birthdays. I’d make an appearance every now and then just so it wasn’t obvious that I was avoiding their house but if I could get away with it, I would skip the occasion all together. And I would most definitely avoid the auburn-haired woman standing in front of me now.
It’s my turn to let out a deep sigh, and as I prepare to speak, I feel a lump forming in my throat despite my protests by clearing my throat. “Dad is… as he’s always been. But worse. He’s constantly down my throat about my next case, next client, how I’m going to climb higher, what I’m going to do next, as if what I’m doing now isn’t good enough. Because I don’t already have a full plate, between flying between two sides of the country at his whim, my investment properties in both states, dealing with multiple state laws and separating them and actually being a good lawyer for my clients. I’m successful in my career and investments but I don’t get any credit for any of it because he ‘was the one that put you through college and law school’ but if I fail…” I shake my head and suddenly, I’m fifteen again, venting to her about my latest fight with my father as if not a day has passed.
I’d almost forgotten how easy it was to talk to her.
“If you fail…?” She prompts.
“I fail. On my own.” I grip the edge of the table, tearing my gaze from her and staring off deeper into the now dark garden. “Not to mention that every time I come up short of his expectations he dangles my inheritance in front of me like I’m some kind of dog on a leash.”
She snorts. “Dogs are easier to train.”
I cast her a dark look, but it’s her soft expression that I wasn’t expecting, even less when she steps closer to me and rests a hand against my chest, and I can practically feel my heart rate slow at the contact.
“What I mean,” she says, her grey eyes wide as she stares up at me with full vulnerability and care, a care I’m not at all used to anymore. “Is that you’re fearless, you always have been. You’ve never complied with anybody else’s rules, you made your own. And although that usually got you into a lot of trouble… it also made you incredibly self-reliant. You don’t need anyone else, not your teachers, not the other lawyers in your firm, not Devon, not your dad. Which is what I think scares him the most, is that he knows you’re capable of so much more and if you lived freely, not worrying about him, you would climb so much higher than he’s ever been.”
I watch her, my breath coming in rasps at her words, like she’d punched me in the gut instead of speaking kindly. “You know, you make it really hard not to be completely in love with you.”
A soft smile touches her lips as her hand drops from my chest and I almost ache in its absence. “We’re not talking about that right now.” She says.
“But we will talk about it?” I say and my voice is far more hopeful than I like to admit. “Because I have a lot to say.”
She hesitates, and, before she can answer, a third voice breaks into our conversation.
“Hands above your head! You’re under arrest for trespassing!”